2018 brought an unexpected boom for gaming phones, that became cool all of a sudden. ASUS made a ROG Phone, Razer had two phones under its belt and Xiaomi and ZTE also churned out some. Razer’s phone are some of the most respected in the field but somehow we didn’t get to test them. Luckily we’ve just scored a Razer Phone 2 for testing and we’ve unboxed it below.
We were also lucky enough to also score a pair of Razer Hammerhead USB-C ANC headphones to play with, the kind of accessory that costs $99.99 separately. The phone itself is priced at around $499 now. This 120 Hz gaming phone is heavier than expected and also has a smaller screen than expected. It feels and looks very bricky and angular to me, not my favourite approach, with those huge speakers upfront.
Inside its box we find the manual, charger, USB Type-C to Type-C cable and an adapter from USB Type-C to 3.5 mm audio jack. The Hammerhead headphones come bundled with a carrying pouch and tips for the buds. Razer Phone 2.0 was recently updated to Android 9.0 Pie and it comes with an RGB lighting system at the back side, which can be set by you. It’s got the whole Razer Chrome thing going on.
The handset is IP67 certified, for dust and water resilience, it measures 8.5 mm in thickness and weighs 220 grams, which is a lot by any standards, particularly for a sub 6 inch device. The screen on board is an IGZO IPS LCD with a 5.72 inch diagonal and a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. It has Gorilla Glass 5 protection, wide color support, HDR and 120 Hz support too.
Inside we find the Snapdragon 845 CPU, 8 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, as well as a microSD card slot. There are stereo Dolby Atmos speakers upfront, that have been THX certified and are used to deliver optimal acoustics. On the camera front we have a dual 12 MP + 12 MP back camera, with OIS and 2X optical zoom, plus a dual LED flash.
The front camera is an 8 MP shooter and other specs include WiFi dual band, Bluetooth 5.0 and a fingerprint scanner that’s side mounted in the not very comfy power button. The battery is a 4000 mAh unit and it supports wireless charging, plus fast charging at 18W. The OS seen here isn’t vanilla Android, but rather Android covered with the Nova Launcher Prime.
We dedicated a special segment of the unboxing to the headphones. ANC stands for Active Noise Cancelling and this Razer Hammerhead pair features a dual driver, plus a digital to analog converter. It has a braided cable, it weighs 21 grams and offers a 1.2 meter long cable with USB Type-C connector. The tips are special T500 foam models, not your typical silicone or rubber affair.
I’ll be looking forward to playing games on the device, even though I would have liked a bigger diagonal and maybe a lighter body. Hopefully the battery life is solid and acoustics are top 3 material. You can get the Razer Phone 2 from here.
